There's something I like to do with translations. I get a text in the original language (one I don't know but can read/pronounce, which I enjoy learning to do), and a close translation, and I try to figure out what words mean. It's surprisingly effective, in that you can get a lot of potential definitions, but it's also hard to tell if you're right. So I'm posting some of my attempts at The Poetry of Llywarch Hen, a book I got at the library with Welsh and English side by side. If anyone here knows some Welsh (Simon?) maybe you can help correct me? And anyone's free to join in with their own texts.

Depending the language you're learning, and the languages you already know, you can add the "sound changer cheat"... it's just make a list with about dozen correlations, apply them and see if you recognize the word. Not only it helps making more vocabulary readly recognizable, but has fun itself.

For this to work, you must know some related language (I'll call "start lang"); closer the langs, fewer correlations. If you use English as start lang, it works wonders with German, so-so with Romance and Latin, and gets annoying with Satem (Russian, Sanskrit, Greek) languages.

With German, for example:*German word-start Z /ts/ corresponds to English T: zehn>ten, Zeit>time, Zähre>tear;*German EI /ai/ corresponds to English I /ai/: Zeit>time, reise>rise;And so goes on. It's like using History to make the hard work for you.

sölvm magnvm homö potest esse quandö rëses nvnqvam prae vïdërunt creat.(A human being can only be great when creat what was never seen before.)

The diacritics are not optional in Welsh; take away the circumflex and you have not "sings" but "by". Moreover, you've stumbled across the joy that is Celtic initial mutation. The base form is actually cân; it appears as gân because the sentence is in "abnormal order", with the verb appearing in second position rather than initially.

ganant - sing (3rd person plural)

See above.

-au - plural endinggangau - branches

Again, this is a mutated form. Moreover, if you think you can get the singular simply by removing the plural ending, you'll be disappointed. In addition to consonant mutation, Welsh also has vowel mutation (called "umlaut"). The singular of cangau is actually cainc!

glaf - ill/sick

Once again, a mutated form. The citation form is claf. (Any guesses as to the plural?)

kajzeren wrote:With German, for example:*German word-start Z /ts/ corresponds to English T: zehn>ten, Zeit>time, Zähre>tear;*German EI /ai/ corresponds to English I /ai/: Zeit>time, reise>rise;And so goes on. It's like using History to make the hard work for you.

And German /t/ corresponds to English /m/?

Despite the resemblances and the similarity in meaning, Zeit and time go back to different Germanic lexemes. The true English cognate to German Zeit is tide. (Cf. Gezeit "tide".)

Interesting. The reason I gave the two versions for "sings" is because in the previous verse it occurred without the circumflex, and I thought it corresponded to the word in the next verse without the circumflex. And yes, the mutations...I'm learning they're affected by gender, too!